The Weekly Review: Week 44

Weekly Kitties

Umm. We had a weekly kitty health event requiring a vet trip and medicating all the kitties in the household. I promise you don't want more details than that. It was interesting to note that while 3 out of 4 kitties were unusually well behaved while taking their medicine (a pill) the fourth was extremely challenging.

Attempt 1: I popped the pill in Sophie's mouth and she spit it back out before I managed to clamp her mouth shut.

Attempt 2: I picked up the now sticky pill and popped it back in her mouth. I got her mouth clamped shut and got scratched several times while she tried to push my arms away. I was about to celebrate success when I looked down and saw the pill sitting by her side. She had managed to spit the thing out again.

Attempt 3: I wrapped her in my pajama bottoms, which were handy, to try to keep her from clawing me up any further and stuck the pill back in again. Her sister came over to groom her while she growled at me with her mouth clamped shut. I waited and waited and waited for the swallow. It wasn't until I unwrapped her and was about to let her go (preparing for a fourth attempt) that I finally saw her swallow. Success.

My husband totally gets to give her the follow up pill in two weeks. I'll do the other three, but he gets Sophie.

Ava this Week

Ava has discovered that her room is a place to play. On one hand, this is a wonderful development. When she awakens an hour earlier than everyone else in the household, she can now entertain herself rather happily in her room. On the other hand, it is messing with her nap/bedtime routine.

Before this new discovery, you could put her in bed, cover her just the right way with two blankets, hand her something to snuggle, sing a song, and never hear another peep. She was asleep in minutes. Now, as soon as I leave the room she's back up. She plays for 10-15 minutes and then opens her door and creeps down the stairs to share something that seems very important to her.

The first time, she had found a thread on the chair in her room. (Really, a thread?) The second time, she had bumped her ankle and felt I needed to know. The third time she was cold. I think you get the idea. Now if I want her to go to sleep at nap time I have to sit in her room to keep her in bed long enough for the sleep to catch her. At bedtime, we're putting her bed multiple times.

I'm hoping the problem will solve itself once the shiny newness of independent play in her room wears off.

The Weekly Michael

Interesting story about Michael. This past weekend, Ava spent a day and a half with her grandparents leaving Michael here with us for some one-on-one time. He was an angel. He was thoughtful and polite. He was fun to play with and also spent long periods of time playing independently. As soon as Ava came home he went back to the somewhat wild, slightly disobedient, attention-seeking behavior. I'm not sure what to think. He likes his sister. They get along and play together amazingly well. Why would he behave worse with us when his sister is home?

Ava's Weekly Home Therapy Focus

This has not been a productive at-home therapy week. First Ava spent a night with her grandparents and then came home late the next night. Then we were getting ready for an unexpected trip out of town and the preparation and travel kept us from doing our usual nightly speech sessions. It's ok. We'll get back to it next week and perhaps the break will have done some good.

Weekly Blog Possibility

It's been a while since I've done anything new with the blog design. I'm considering making a few changes. It'll be a while before anything happens. I'm going to do some thinking, some researching, some playing around, and some more thinking before I actually change anything. But it is fun to think about.

Initial B Minimal Pairs: Free Speech Therapy Articulation Picture Cards

Description

This articulation card set is designed to be an extension of my single-syllable cards sets. The words are all still CV or CVC in syllable shape and include no blends or vocalic /r/ sounds. This is a comprehensive set of minimal pairs focusing on contrasting the initial /b/ sound with each of the other early emerging sounds. The initial /b/ is contrasted three times with each of the other early emerging sounds (p, t, d, m, n, h) using a different vowel each time. The target audience for these cards are children with severe speech delays who need exposure to a minimal pair technique to emphasize that they need to differentiate production of two different words. (Scroll down to preview set.)

Key Features

• This set includes 18 therapy cards pairs with the initial /b/ word on the left and the matching minimal pair on the right. The /b/ words are paired three times with /p, t, d, m, n, and h/ using a different vowel sound each time.
• The words are CV or CVC in syllable shape.
• The words feature early emerging consonants.
• The words are simple and are easily understood by or easily taught to young children.

Permissions

I give permission to copy, print, or distribute this card set provided that:

1. Each copy makes clear that I am the document's author.
2. No copies are altered without my express consent.
3. No one makes a profit from these copies.
4. Electronic copies contain a live link back to my original and print copies not for merely personal use contain the URL of my original.

Looking for Feedback

I would love to hear back from anyone who uses this card set. Let me know if you find errors or there is anything you would change. Comment on this page, or send me an email at testyyettrying(at)gmail(dot)com.

Where can I find more?

More sets are on my Free Speech Therapy Articulation Cards page.

Card Sets

To download click on the image to open it full size. Then right click on the image, choose "save as" and save the page to your computer.

I recommend you print on cardstock and laminate for durability.

Good Sportsmanship?

Let's start with the good part of this story. I bought an UNO deck at the grocery store the other day and we sat down as a family to play. I always enjoyed UNO, so unlike certain other children's games (Candyland), I was looking forward to playing.

We had never played a card game before. I introduced the terms dealer, dealt, hand, deck, and shuffle. They loved watching me shuffle the cards and had a blast helping me count as the cards were dealt until we all had seven cards. Since it was their first time we just all played with our hands face up and focused on learning the mechanics of the game. Everyone had fun. They easily caught on to matching either color or number and enjoyed learning about reverse, skip, and wildcards. Michael and his dad even joked and laughed when Michael was skipped about three times in a row.

However, things ended on a sour note when I won the game. They seem so young to be upset that they didn't win. However, even at the ages of two and four, I got crossed arms, pouting faces, turned backs, and the complaint, "But I wanted to win!" All of this was followed by a refusal to play a second time.

Obviously this is something we need to address. I think I'm going to start playing games with them often. I'll play at least once with them during the day, and we'll play as an entire family a few times a week. Before we even begin I'll say that we're going to play at least twice no matter who wins. I'll discuss (briefly and age appropriately) that we play together because it is fun and model nice things to say to the winner and nice things for a winner to say.

Does anyone have any other ideas about how to teach good sportsmanship to preschoolers?